Today's Features

The Hoppers, America’s “Favorite Family of Gospel Music,” is returning to Lancaster for a 7 p.m. concert today at Second Baptist Church, 1426 Great Falls Highway.

“This group has been here twice before and is always a fan favorite,” said Dennis Nichols of GlennMark Promotions.

The group, which started performing as a family ensemble in the late 1950s, includes Claude Hopper, his wife, Connie, their sons Dean and Mike and daughter-in-law Kim Greene Hopper.

In the early 1950s, McIlwain Road was a sleepy dirt road community that wasn’t much more than a short cut from Lancaster to Heath Springs.

But about half way down it, something was happening, a group of dedicated church members from the area led by the Rev. J.L. Maloney were hard at work.

When they weren’t working on their area farms or waiting for the mill whistle to blow, they were busy laying bricks to build Oak Ridge ARP Church.

It might have taken a decade to build the mission church, but it was a labor of love.